Missional

Excerpt from Talking to a Man From the Future: A Conversation with Michael Frost by Fred Peatross in New Wineskins Magazine J-F 2007

Fred: How do leaders prepare, begin, and ultimately practice (missional) culture building in faith communities that have relied upon the attractional model for their growth?

Michael Frost: You want me to answer that in a few minutes!? It took me two whole books to answer that question!! Well, the attractional model relies on the old Field of Dreams mantra: “If you build it, they will come.” It assumes that there is a big constituency out there hankering to get back to church if only church was done to their taste. So attractional churches are turning themselves inside-out trying to find the right combination to get the crowds back to church. Dynamic preaching, comfortable seating, convenient parking, excellent children’s ministry, healing ministries, spirit-filled worship, classic hymns, contemporary music etc. etc. etc.

But the terrifying thought that besets us is this: what if people “out there” don’t care how you do church? What if they don’t want conventional church no matter whether it’s contemporary/classic/spirit-filled/Bible-centred/you name it? Well, in many parts of America that’s exactly the case. If all our eggs are in the attractional basket, we are preparing church services for a constituency that no longer exists, or at best is dwindling.

How do we inculcate a missional paradigm? We have to take committed followers of Jesus out into the world to model Christlikeness right under the noses of those who won’t come to our church services. And to do that, we need to free those committed Christians from the various church-based and church-focused ministries they’re currently doing. The opposite of the attractional mode is the incarnational one—that is, the sent mode. For me to live incarnationally I need the freedom and time to hang out with neighbours, join local affinity groups, and to build meaningful relationships with those not yet set free by Jesus. But I can’t do that if I’m in the church band or choir, on various committees, and attending three or four church meetings a week.

Church leaders have to teach their congregations the biblical principles of incarnational mission and then restructure the church programs in order to release people, not to hold on to them. Some churches are so thoroughly self-focused it seems hardly likely that they will be prepared to even take these simple first steps. We, as the church of Jesus Christ, do not exist for ourselves. But as Bonhoeffer says, “We are a church for others.” If we can’t manage this shift in our thinking and practice there will be little hope left in the decades of decline into secularisation that is coming.